But attempts to impose a maximum journey time on livestock hauliers have been abandoned amid sharp disagreements between member states.

After Ireland had failed to broker a compromise on the proposed animal welfare regulation earlier this year, the Netherlands – its successor to the EU presidency – indicated it would only revive the dossier if it was certain of clinching a deal.

A Dutch diplomat said that the agreement to be approved by ministers is “a bit of a lowest common denominator compromise but is still worthwhile”.

In July 2003, the European Commission suggested that trucks carrying live animals should not be driven for more than nine hours at a stretch. The journey could then continue, though, provided the animals were rested for 12 hours.

But with big livestock exporters such as France, Italy, Spain and Ireland opposed to such limits, the weighted majority needed to introduce the measures proved elusive.

The Dutch presidency’s position that the Galileo system should be used to monitor transports follows evidence that rules on preventing the overcrowding of vehicles carrying animals were being flouted. The Luxembourg authorities have found that Dutch transporters stopped to offload pigs from trucks onto others that were already laden with animals. While the former vehicles returned home, the latter kept on driving.

The Eurogroup for Animal Welfare welcomes the intended use of Galileo but is dismayed that no new rules on journey time, stocking density and the temperature and humidity of trucks used for livestock are forthcoming. Its director Sonja Van Tichelen complained that the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease epidemic illustrated how animals transported for long distances became more vulnerable to contagious illnesses. “We don’t want to have to wait for another disease outbreak before the journey time issue is properly addressed,” she said.

Roxane Feller of the Committee of Agricultural Organizations in the European Union (COPA), voiced relief that the main points of the Commission’s proposal had been rejected. “We were afraid the scope was so stringent, any transport of animals could have been prohibited,” she said.

Feller declared that COPA was “neither for nor against” the use of Galileo in tracking live transports.